UC San Diego Communication Culture and Representation Essay

your goal is not to say what you think Liu’s story means in the usual sense of reading a work of fiction and discussing plot, character, theme, and so forth. What you think Liu is trying to say, or whether you think the story is good or bad, or how you felt during or after reading it, are irrelevant to this assignment. Instead, your goal is look at Liu’s story as a container of signs that produce meaning within the story. The objective of this assignment is for you to choose, and apply,knowledge drawn from our course so far to show how semiosis–the making of meaning through systems of signification –takes place in Liu’s short story.To do this, your job is to identify one or more signs and show how meaning is produced within a system(or systems)of signification.You can choose any sign(s)that you want, but your reader should clearly know what you have chosen, its significance,and how you are using it in your semiotic analysis.Your essay should include a clear thesis(a claim about what sign(s) you are using and what you intend to argue with it), plenty of clear evidence(concrete examples drawn directly from Liu’s story and from Chandler’s text to support your claim), and a clear conclusion. Both Liu and Chandler must be cited in your essay to show your engagement with ideas from our course